


Standards

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Saw (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Gore, Mentions of corpses, Missing Scene, Movie: Jigsaw (2017), POV Antagonist, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28757451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: "I think you could agree that some mistakes are more honest than others, Logan."
Relationships: John "Jigsaw" Kramer & Logan Nelson
Kudos: 2





	Standards

"If all I did was make a mistake, then what about this poor sap?"

As Logan turned to John, he extended his foot forward; "floated" it in a circle in the air to the dead body on the ground.

John glanced down where indicated, still-faced.

Ryan. Reckless. Careless. Self-indulgent. Selfish.

Dead - he didn't know of exactly what, between the amputation and natural dehydration taking its toll when one's chained to a wall - since this morning.

He turned his eyes back up to the doctor.

Gave the knowing turning in his lips permission to show in a smile.

"I think you could agree that some mistakes are more..." he began, and then with a tiny, barely-perceptibly-punctuating nod, settled on a word. "...honest than others, Logan."

He heard and saw as Logan pushed out a loud exhale; he tossed his head, faintly, and looked back down at the body. A blink - his gaze slid over elsewhere along the floor. Without looking, John inferred where.

Anna. Impulsive. Wrathful. Callous. _Selfish_.

Dead, too - he didn't think it was a stretch to say that it was quite directly of all of the above.

"You can call a bad choice a mistake, but I'd call it just that. A choice." Still not taking his eyes off of Logan, John gestured with one arm over the ground. "If the actions of these two hadn't resulted in the deaths of others, then... what would they've done." Intentionally not a question. He pocketed his hands, in likewise rhetorically intentional lack of concern. "Saved a life? Like mine?"

Logan finally looked back up and back at him. John detected a slight furrow in his brow.

As the sense of knowing deepens, then so, too, does a sense of satisfaction.

And so, too, does John's smile. Openly.

"Do you believe in fate, Dr. Nelson?"

Logan swallowed, lightly - his eyes downcast again by a few degrees. John's head fell subtly tilted, as Logan shook his. "Don't know that I do, necessarily."

Content with the sense of balance in the room, John now grinned more for himself than for show.

Still in pure, certain knowing.

"I think there was purpose to you... not having woken up in time to participate in the _games_ I had set up." John tipped his head further - a sideways nod - followed by his own shake-of-the-head. "I think I may have needed a test of my own...!"

He felt his voice push higher into his head; falter and break. He hadn't felt like laughing, but supposed that the tone had come out of something similar. Something like wonder at a miracle far less shocking than the one that had brought him here; therefore easier to marvel at, in real-time.

Meanwhile, his eyes, too, had meandered down, into the middle distance between them.

He looked Logan back in the face again.

And now, fully for them both, his grin drew deeper in clarity.

"I owe you major thanks, Logan; I do, I really do." He held out a hand, and Logan took it. They shook with neither questioning it. John lightened his voice, curl-of-smoke-like. "You've given me the chance -- not to make my own... dishonest mistake. To make sure that this... mission of mine, this new outlook, doesn't get off on the wrong foot of _selfishness_. Or vindictiveness, or... plain and simple cruelty..."

He pocketed his hands again, and Logan fell short of doing the same with his own, hands wrapping around his thighs with thumbs turning and falling short of finding his pockets. His eyes, as he looks back out into the room, were cold.

And, lightened at a deal done, the look John gave him was one that glowed.

"It's good to have you on board...!"

**Author's Note:**

> Written using the [One Word Prompts](https://towriteprompts.tumblr.com/onewordprompts) list from towriteprompts @ Tumblr!
> 
> Word 6: "Cruelty".
> 
> Also, John feels a Certain Kinda Way to write - true to form, actively interesting but insufferable.


End file.
